SPORTS OF THE TIMES; Red Sox In the Sky With Diamonds

By GEORGE VECSEY

Published: October 11, 2007

now that has a nice ring to it -- brash lads flashed across the firmament, bringing light and color and sound to a drab world. They were named John, Paul, George and Ringo. No, they were named Yaz, Boomer, Lonnie and Tony C., reviving the musty franchise of Yawkeyland.

The Red Sox are a continental phenomenon now, expanding from the weathered confines of Red Sox Nation, perhaps to become the Yankees of the current millennium, while the Yankees are becoming the Atlanta Braves, that is to say, regular qualifiers.

As the Sox prepare for their league championship series with Cleveland, starting tomorrow night at Fenway Park, their century of joy and agony and mediocrity has been captured in one fascinating montage by the Brueghel and Bosch of our time, Charles Steinberg, the executive vice president for public affairs of the Red Sox.

A Beatles aficionado from his obviously well-spent Baltimore childhood, Steinberg has turned the bittersweet history of the Red Sox into a sendup of the ''Sgt. Pepper'' album cover, with Sheryl Crow instead of Marilyn Monroe, Peter Gammons instead of Lewis Carroll.

This montage is currently on display on a billboard on Brookline Avenue, facing the western corner of Fenway, with the title ''Getting Better All the Time -- With a Little Help From Our Friends.''

Instead of the 62 luminaries on the ''Sgt. Pepper'' cover (Mae West, Albert Einstein), there are 391 figures all connected to the Red Sox, in joy and in pain. Of course there is David Ortiz and Jim Rice and a young, trim George Herman Ruth, that great lefty pitcher who went away.

As I eagerly scanned the montage, I discovered ecumenical surprises in every corner -- Enos Slaughter, the Cardinal who dashed home to win the 1946 World Series; the Cardinals' Bob Gibson, who strong-armed the Red Sox in the 1967 Series; the honorable opposition in Alex Rodriguez, Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter. And, yes, in the upper left quadrant, big smile, No. 31 in the annotated guide, is Aaron Boone, the rent-a-Yankee who in 2003. ... aw, you already know that.

Drawing the line at downright masochism, Steinberg did not include Bucky Dent, the first recipient of the middle name Bleeping, or Mookie Wilson, the Mets' hero in that historic sixth game of the World Series in 1986. Steinberg, who plans the creative ceremonies at Fenway, still dreams of getting Bill Buckner back to throw out a first pitch one of these years, but at least Buckner is in the montage, for his five stalwart years, not his one horrid moment.

''You can't pretend these things didn't happen,'' said Steinberg, who has been part of the Sox' crusade to make Jackie Robinson (No. 280, in the center) a virtual Red Sox, to atone for the cruel mock tryout Robinson endured in that very same ballpark in 1945. And there is Pumpsie Green, No. 309, the first black player on the last major league team to integrate, a dozen years late.

The core of the franchise is represented in the center, with the former owner Tom Yawkey; his wife, Jean; Helen Robinson, for 60 years the dominating switchboard operator; and directly next to her, the equally formidable Theodore Samuel Williams.

Steinberg has graciously included the storytellers of Fenway -- the voices and the pens (some sweet, some acidic) -- Curt Gowdy, Sherm Feller and the Big Papi and Manny of The Boston Globe (or maybe vice versa), Bob Ryan and Dan Shaughnessy. In addition, all the musicians who have played Fenway -- Seiji Ozawa, Bruce Springsteen, the Dropkick Murphys -- are included. The Beatles never did, much to Steinberg's regret.

Briefly a working dentist, Steinberg found his calling as franchise impresario, coming to Boston via San Diego after falling in love with his hometown Orioles in 1966, and the lads from Liverpool in 1967. Last summer, sitting at a beach, he sketched his idea for a ''Sgt. Pepper'' theme to honor the 1967 Impossible Dream team.

All the photographs in the montage before 1967 are black and white; everything afterward is in color, as depicted in the classic film ''Yellow Submarine.'' Much of the montage was completed by Mary-Lynne Bohn of Accent Design and Debbie Matson, the Sox' director of publications.

Although included in the Sox' postseason program, the montage is not for sale. (''I didn't want to $9.95 people,'' Steinberg said, using a random price as a verb.) He said he would make the montage available to fans who e-mail him at fanfeedback@redsox.com because he sees the work as art for art's sake, in the spirit of the '60s, rather than a modern venture into branding. (It should be noted that The New York Times owns a sliver of the Red Sox, but we are free to write about the Sox, pro or con.)

Taking the montage in terms of art and history and nostalgia and homage, it works wonderfully. The arcane subplots could spawn a generation of guides to Yawkeyland, much like a skeleton key to ''Finnegans Wake'' for the James Joyce masterpiece. But the central theme, a century of a landmark franchise, resonates like the mighty chord at the end of ''A Day in the Life'' -- timeless, complex, yet always new.